This is a vlog-style transcript of Kara and Nate Buchanan in Santiago, Chile. They begin the day eating at a local food hall (empanadas, a large steak sandwich heavy on mayo), attempt to exchange money, and return to their Airbnb to spend hours planning travel after earlier plans (a campervan trip to the desert) fell through. Nate describes travel mishaps (booking a flight for the wrong day and taking an early bus from Uruguay) and spends the afternoon booking three flights, two Airbnbs, a hotel, and a rental car for the next two weeks while needing to be back in Buenos Aires by February 5. Later they visit Plaza de Armas, watch street performers (including dancing puppet performers and Chinchinero-style drummers), witness street vendors hurriedly packing up as police arrive, sample a peach-wheat drink, and end the day satisfied that bookings are complete.
Questions this video answers
Three flights, two Airbnbs, one hotel, and a rental car.
February 5 (mentioned as deadline to start Patagonia trip).
He booked the flight for the 20th instead of the 21st.
From a beach town in Uruguay (they took a five o'clock bus to the airport).
Chapters
Sam.
It's our first full day in Chile.
We're not starting it like that.
And it's lunchtime. And the beginning of this vlog is going to look a lot like the end of yesterday's vlog.
We are heading back to the bank with $100 bill that does not have a rip in it. And then we are going back to the empanadas place. We were not joking last night about how much we loved it.
We both woke up thinking about them. Maybe we'll get something different for dinner today.
We will get something different for dinner.
Uno churrasco italiano.
Si. Un coca cola.
Getting some new YouTube fans. The nice guys at this food stand.
Apparently does have a bottom.
Get it down with less mayo.
So we are on our way to the bank. When we started walking down this, like, little food hall, we just ended up here somehow. And there's all these, like, cheap, little, I guess it's like, street food style restaurant stand things. I don't know. It all looked amazing. We were both starving, so we decided to stop for an early snack. We have gotten some kind of massive sandwich that looks like it has some kind of steak with tons of guacamole, tomato, and way too much mayo for my taste.
That's very good.
I think we're calling it quits. Even though I was really looking forward to more empanadas. I'm glad we found this place. We just need to figure out how to say no mayo or light on mayo. There was a lot of it.
Gracias. Very good.
Our sandwich is really hitting us. I don't think we have room for empanadas anymore, so we're gonna save those for dinner. And we tried to exchange money again, and today they're closed because it's Saturday. So we are once again out of luck on getting cash. But it's okay because empanadas take credit cards.
So now we are back at our Airbnb, and we mentioned yesterday that our plans for Chile fell through. We were gonna campervan to the desert. So we need to take some time today to really plan out our next two weeks because all we've been doing the last week is stressfully booking things last minute. And we just need to organize our life.
So I'm gonna take as long as I need to this afternoon to figure out what the next two weeks looks like for us. We have to be back in Buenos Aires on February 5th in order to start our adventure to Patagonia, which we're extremely excited about. But that means we have two weeks where we have no earthly idea what we're doing. So that's my goal this afternoon, starting with probably finding an Airbnb for a few more nights here in Santiago. Because we found this place yesterday, it was the only place we could find. They only had two nights available. So we get kicked out tomorrow. Yeah, I'm just really ready to, like, not be. Booking things the day before can get.
Stressful, but it's fun sometimes.
We neglected to mention yesterday in the vlog that the reason we woke up and took a five o' clock bus from the beach town that we were in in Uruguay to the airport is because I accidentally booked our flights a day earlier than I was supposed to have booked it for the 20th instead of the 21st. And it was going to be, like, expensive to change the flights. And we ended up being able to hop on, like, a five o' clock bus and get to the airport in time to catch our flight that was a day earlier. I've been struggling. We didn't have anywhere to stay recently. I lost our debit card, we missed our first form of transportation, and I booked a flight on the wrong day for the first time in over a year travel. So that's kind of what's added to the stressful travel planning. I think the last minute has a lot to do with it. Yeah. Like, I just have, like, so many things I'm trying to, like, get figured out that I'm making mistakes. So we're gonna sit here, figure it out. That was much longer than I planned on it being. But that's the truth.
We like to keep you updated on the boring stuff, but you have to have boring stuff in order to do the fun stuff.
That is so true.
This is it. This is gonna be us. The next few hours.
Gonna knock it over.
So we still have nothing booked, but we worked the whole time.
It's just, like, so hard because you have to figure out, like, every little step between each thing before you book any of them. So, like, I actually made a lot of progress.
But nothing's booked yet.
This is the hard part about travel, like, and trying to get work done at the same time. Because when you're in a city, you only have a limited amount of time here, and you want to make the most of it. You don't want to sit in the apartment the whole time. So with that said, we're going again, bananas. Even though we don't have anything booked, we're going out again.
Hola. Hola.
Welcome. Thank you very much. Sit down, please. Ah, thank you.
So we've seen tons of people drinking something with the spoon, and we finally found this stand and learned that it is wheat.
Like, a spoonful of wheat. It kind of reminds me of, like, oats and peach.
So.
Whoa.
It's super peachy. It's like really.
Fresh peach tea.
With wheat. That's what it tastes like.
It's good.
It's just, like, why? I don't understand it. I don't understand the wheat, but I really like the peach part.
Muchas gracias.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Wasn't meant to be. You don't have a plan B?
No, this is my only plan.
We were thinking the town felt a little empty on our way over here, and it turns out it was just because everyone was here in the square. I don't know what's going on. There's, like, street performers and music.
I love those little dancing puppet guys. I think they're a better dancer than I am. I really enjoyed the one in Barcelona, so I'm happy we got to see another one here.
So we learned this place is called Plaza de Armaz, and apparently it's just the place to be on Saturday night. There's a ton of people on this road too, so we're gonna go see what's happening over.
I heard some yelling, and I think all these people are packing up because they're not supposed to be here. Everyone's packing up their market. Oh, that was crazy.
What?
There were just, like, a hundred people with a mat laid out with all the stuff that they were selling, and now there's no. How did they know? Police are coming.
This happened once in Taiwan, but it was with street food vendors happening again.
All the street vendors are running away.
Follow them.
Where the.
Literally, there were, like, 10 right on this street, and now they are all gone. But the good news news is the ice cream stand is stationary.
They all started rolling away their street food. We were chasing them.
Nate and I both decided that that's one of our favorite street performances we've ever seen. Never seen anything like that.
It is almost 1am but I've finally succeeded in booking, I think, everything for the next two weeks. So I've booked three flights, two Airbnbs, a hotel, and a rental car.
So took a little longer than I planned. But all in all, a very successful day. Now it's time for bed.
